Yiddish, poetry, science, medicine, vegetarian Indian food, and the Ineffable. In no particular order.

5/3/04

A new poem by Yehudah Amichai

Neat trick, huh?

That is, a posthumous poem, published in Haaretz on the anniversary of his birthday, May 6th. This will be the first year for the awarding of the Amichai Poetry Prize (presumably for poetry in Hebrew, though I don't know).

It's called Onot, or Seasons. The first few lines could be translated this way:

So summer kept dwelling on the blood,
burning, bright and quick in dealing judgment.
The wind, afterwards, moved over our faces, but
someone ushered it away, over
the mountains. After that the rains came
and washed the stains from the highway.

Or maybe that's not how it should go in English at all. Maybe I'll try the rest of it, but t looks like it requires a lot of thought, and who knows who I would have to get permission from to publish any translation in a journal.